Syracuse Crunch owner Howard Dolgon has requested and received a meeting this afternoon with County Executive Joanie Mahoney to get an update on the issue of a new scoreboard for the War Memorial.

Mahoney has supported Dolgon's efforts to get the Legislature to buy a $700,000-plus scoreboard. But so far, the Legislature has balked.

Syracuse is in the third season of a five-year lease with the Oncenter. Dolgon has repeatedly said that he will not exercise an option year after that lease without a new scoreboard for his team and its fans.

"We're getting closer to reaching the option year for our lease. That's critical,'' he said. "I haven't heard anything in awhile. My feel is that the legislators are laying back and not making this a priority at all.''

Dolgon's approach to this issue will be interesting on a number of levels. Last summer, when the Legislature held a hearing on the matter before voting it down, Dolgon was all fired up about drawing a line in the sand and possibily exploring new homes for the team. Then he backed off a bit, repeatedly insisting that he was optimistic something would get done.

Now, clearly, he wants assurances that things are progressing, and rightly so. But so much has changed for the worse economically in the last few months, including the revelation of a $10.7 million budget deficit. Anyone who hesitated about spending money on a scoreboard before isn't going to be more eager to open the pursestrings now.

Dolgon knows this, and as a person with a sharp sense of the current temperature, understands there will be no sympathy for someone making non-essential financial threats in this type of climate. But like everyone else he has a business to keep solvent, that business is the Crunch, and if indeed another city can offer what Syracuse can't or won't, well, why shouldn't he think about bettering his situation?

- On a cheerier note, Dolgon said Columbus is very active making trade overtures and something could happen soon that impacts the Crunch.

- Crunch defenseman Aaron Rome, still out with an unspecified upper body injury, is not practicing. Syracuse coach Ross Yates said he is uncertain whether Rome will play this weekend.

- Syracuse blueliner Jonathan Sigalet, out for the season with a shoulder injury, recently had surgery in Columbus and is now rehabbing in Syracuse.

Sigalet walked into Yates' office on Tuesday morning and looked at the ever-changing lineup board on the wall.